The First of Fifteen Summers

The First of Fifteen Summers

Fourteen summers ago, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company was a tiny group of about 15 people who wanted to do Shakespeare in a different way. We’d performed one show in the Howard County Center for the Arts Black Box Theatre and maybe a hundred people saw the production. We had no money and no plan for a second show.

Then, out of the blue, the Friends of the Patapsco Female Institute invited us to look at the beautiful Howard County park that is home to the ruins of the former girls’ school. They loved the park. They took care of the park. They had no idea what to do with the park until someone suggested Shakespeare. Could we produce a play outside at PFI? You bet we could! We could do anything! We absolutely, positively could produce Romeo and Juliet with almost no budget!

Founding Artistic Director Ian Gallanar could get terrific young actors to perform beautifully for next to nothing. Four people, led by Dan O’Brien (our wonderful Technical Director today) could build a set out of scavenged materials and pallets. We could find a talented young costume designer named Kristina Lambdin (our Resident Costumer today) to create and beg gorgeous Renaissance costumes for a song. A friend of mine who’d never had anything to do with theatre before could run the box office. We could set up worklights instead of renting expensive lights. We could send out press photos and get a little newspaper coverage (pre-Facebook!). We could convince people to trudge up a hill to see a theatre company they’d never heard of. We could make Verona come to life on top of Mount Ida!

And it worked. Thanks to you, our fledgling organization spread its wings. You liked us and came back for more the next year and then the next and now you all have been coming for 15 summers. We may have a theater with a roof in Baltimore City, but the PFI Historic Park will always be our outdoor home.

Post navigation

Announcements

September 10, 2019

Chesapeake Shakespeare Company has embarked on a new strategic planning process. We blew through our 2011 strategic plan’s goals astonishingly faster than we predicted by acquiring, renovating, funding and moving into our beautiful theatre only three years after we created that plan. It’s taken us five years of working in this new space to feel ready to strategize anew.

September 4, 2019

We’ve started construction on our long-awaited pedestrian bridge—a ten foot structure that spans the alley that separates our beautiful theatre, and The Studio for education and our offices next door. We can’t wait to make it easy for students and staff to travel between the two buildings. Read more about it here and come try it out in November!

24 Hours at the CSC Theater

10:00 a.m. April 16–10:00 a.m. April 17, 2019: a typical spring day at CSC. After a morning performance of Romeo and Juliet for an audience of school groups, CSC technical staff take over the stage to dismantle and remove the set, then assemble an entirely different set for the evening's rehearsal of The Diary of Anne Frank. At the end of the night the entire process is repeated in reverse to get ready for another school matinee the next day. This year CSC presented school matinee performances for nearly 13,000 students from throughout central Maryland and beyond.